After the many bills that Areli Sanchez's family pays every month, including those for food, rent and utilities, outfitting their home with high-speed Internet is just not a possibility.

But that disconnection has left the 20-year-old from the Chicago Lawn neighborhood feeling isolated from her friends in the city and relatives in Mexico and worried about how she will finish homework assignments when she re-enrolls in college.

"I miss a lot of what is new with my friends and family," said Sanchez, who schleps the family laptop to the library twice a week to get online. "It is kind of difficult right now. ... I feel like I am behind."

But Sanchez, who experts say is one of hundreds of thousands of Chicagoans who don't have good Internet access, may not feel that way for long, according to a plan unveiled Monday by Mayor Richard Daley.

The "Smart Communities" plan would increase broadband access in five neighborhoods, including Humboldt Park, Pilsen, Auburn Gresham, Chicago Lawn and Englewood, where a recent study showed spotty Internet usage because of cost, difficulty using computers and a lack of interest.

"Creating broadband infrastructure and access to technology in our neighborhoods is just as important to cities in the 21st century as paving streets, building water systems, utility systems were in the 19th and 20th century," Daley said Monday at a news conference in Chicago Lawn with Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski.

Although Hewlett-Packard will soon install about 40 touch-screen computer kiosks in the five neighborhoods, much of the plan relies on the city receiving stimulus funds, Daley said. The city expects to hear about the grants by March.